


No Road Back to Innocence

by Saraste



Category: Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:09:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/pseuds/Saraste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nat is leaving for Leipzig to finish his studies. Dan cannot bear to have him leave, can't have Nat in the dark any longer, but must take a chance to either ruin their friendship for good or find that what he feels is what his violinist has been feeling all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Road Back to Innocence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bec/gifts).



Love, given a chance to grow, cultivated by the finer feelings in a persons heart, sometimes finds its way through unconventional ways, not caring for what is deemed proper or within the rules, unsaid or otherwise, of any given society. 

Nat had always trusted Dan with his life. His heart, however, was something which he should have kept to himself, shielding it, for a love like theirs would and could never last, not in the world they lived in, where a love like theirs was punishable by loss of liberty, even when it was not something Nat considered in the moment when Dan kissed him for the very first time, or with the events which followed that first kiss, crashing over them like a tidal wave, binding them together with and even deeper intimacy that what they had shared berfore. 

The shy violinist had always looked up to Dan, but even he could not say when his adoration had begun to take on shades of desire. He had tried to fight it, but in the end it was all futile, most of all when Dan kissed him, even when Nat's hesitance did raise it's head then. There was no convincing Nat's unruly heart of his feelings being wrong, what was the worst of it all, was that Nat did not see how his desire, his love for his friend, was in any way wrong. He had lived a more free life, maybe, before he had come to Plumfield, and had seen a range of relationships, even those that the people he had come into contact with ever since he had met with Mr Laurence, did not approve of.

It was unlike anything that Nat had ever experienced in his young life, Dan's warm lips on his own, insistent, passionate. Everything he had ever been taught made it... wrong but never had doing the wrong thing felt as right as his old friend's lips on his own. A line had been crossed now, both of them knew that it could also never be uncrossed, there was no undoing what had been done, no taking away the rough insistence of Dan's kiss, the grasp of his strong hands on Nat's arms, the wall of the hallway in Plumfield, where Nat was spending one last night before his studies in Leipzig, hard against Nat's back as Dan pushed him.

There was no way back now.

Both were sure, if hesitant, that it was for the good. Love would out, the finer emotions of ardor needing an object. It was not a youthful fancy, camaraderie gone wrong, on either their part, far from it, but a beautiful meeting of souls, even if their affection, their actions, was not such that society would surely shun them if the nature of their affection was to be known. Neither of them saved a thought to their location, for surely, in as lively house as was Plumfield, someone would come and see them. 

Yet, as the human mind is it's own worst enemy, at least when it comes to young men and their desires, which they find it so hard to trust, when their lips parted, chasing one another to kiss anew, even timid Nat, having had his kiss and wanting more, his unconscious and thus maybe more honest spirit wanting to continue what his finer veneer might not but spoke the first words which came into his mind on that precious moment right after his world had turned upside down, made so by a pair of lips which would not be denied and eyes which gazed upon him with such... hunger.

“But, Dan” Nat spoke, not letting go of Dan, because it was Dan, he could trust him, “is this right?” 

Nat could not prevent the words escaping his mouth, as much as he would have liked to do so, even when that very same mouth had received and answered Dan's kiss, which was something that Nat still found very difficult to wrap his head around. The kiss had made him... Nat did not know what, could not articulate the wild cascade of emotions in his heart, all battling for dominance, one part of him scared, fearing the reactions of others, most of the rest wanting nothing more than rejoice in the passion Dan had for him. Nat cast a quick panicked glance on each way of the corridor, relieved there was no-one, yet did not hesitate to initiate a conversation, even when anyone could still walk into the hallway and see them. See Dan pressing Nat against the wall, the intense way in which Dan was focused onto Nat's face, the hands that held onto Nat's arms, the way Nat looked at Dan, lost, not knowing what he ought to do, waiting and dreading the answer Dan would surely give, no matter if it would be an admission or a denial.

The breath which issued from Dan's mouth blew warm on Nat's cheek and lips, a flash of irritation shot through Dan's eyes, the likes of which Nat had rarely seen, at least not when it was him and Dan. But the young wild man held his temper, Dan had learned his lesson, and did not want to upset Nat in any way. There was a doubt now in Dan, a seldom occurrence, that giving in to the desire to kiss Nat, taste the lips he had so often wanted to kiss, had been a mistake. Given anything, Nat was not like Dan, he was good, if not always honest, mostly to himself now, having learned his lesson as a boy. But Dan had hoped, against all odds, that he could have what others had, the person he loved in his arms. Yet, given everything, Nat's words had made Dan uneasy, even while there was no denying that Nat had kissed him back.

“I've seen enough in my life to know love can never be wrong,” Dan said, the look in his eyes making Nat stand very still.

Dan's eyes, so familiar, yet so frightfully intense and unknowable at the same time, bore straight down into the very depths of Nat's soul. The boy wanted to avert his eyes, to escape the terrible intimacy of his friends gaze but there was no evading it. Nat looked at Dan for an infinity and a second, a whole life, an affection which went beyond and was an extension of their friendship was in Dan's eyes, Nat felt like falling, but it was Dan who kept him in place, not allowing him to stumble. Slowly, Dan leaned closer again and Nat did not pull away. As Dan's lips took his surrender and gave in kind, Nat gave in willingly, not caring about right or wrong. Dan's affection filled something in him that he had not known he had been missing. 

The door to the room Nat was staying in was quickly found, closed and locked, to keep away curious eyes and disapproving words. Nat was hesitant, even when Dan's kisses made him hungry, made him crave for something he had never had, had never thought he would have with Dan, had not really even admitted it to himself that he would want to. Dan was so sure that it made Nat wonder, but all thoughts of any kind fled his mind as Dan kissed him once more. Clothes were shedded in due course, Dan giving Nat any time he needed, yet refusing to be denied. Nor did Nat want to do that, not with the way Dan held him close, reassuring, making all thoughts and doubts scatter, making Dan his world, answering a deep desire and fulfilling any want Nat might have.

Day folded into night with the pair of young men sleeping contently in each others arms, having spent their love with familiarizing each other's bodies in an act of pure ardour. Nat had tried to escape Dan's arms in the minutes after their affection had blossomed, the shackles of society and propriety discarded in the name of love, when they had succumbed to the carnal pleasure of each others naked young bodies. Nat had never in his life experienced something like what he had with Dan. Nat had tried, in vain, to back away from the overwhelming pleasure of Dan's affection, the all-consuming force of Dan's love too much for Nat to bear. But he had been held, caressed and shown true affection, not allowed to run away from the inexorable sway of their bodies, the creaking of the bed, which Nat had feared would make anyone privy to their actions, the gasps which mingled with muttered curses, gasped affection.

Dan's words had been rough around the edges, not anything that Nat would have thought that Dan would ever care to say to a girl, but the emotion, the heavy timbre of Dan's voice went straight into Nat's heart. Wild eyes had bored down into him, nailing him in place as Dan had held on. Dreams of what had come to pass, the steady warmth of Dan against his back, anchored Nat. His body had awoken to desire and its fulfillment and there was no way back to innocence, even when it might break his heart to love another man.

Nat still left for Leipzig to pursue his dreams, if not his heart, the following day. Dan's lips on his own in a dark corner away from prying eyes was the last thing Nat remembered from good old Plum as the carriage where he was seated in rolled on. Nat left his heart behind in America. He feared, full well so, that he would never see Dan again. That the night, that terrifying yet inexplicable night of tender actions and rough loving had been just a dream concocted by his wild imagination, based on the way Dan had looked at him longer than what Nat cared to admit even to himself. Alone in a foreign land, even when he was pursuing his dream to be a great violinist, Nat could not forget the way he had been kissed, the way rough calloused hands had roamed over his body, the way their bodies had rocked together in unison, flesh upon naked flesh. In his homesickness, Nat threw himself into the passion of spending money that was not his, still studying but partially shirking his responsibilities in favor of spending a merry time with his peers, drowning his longing for Dan into his gallivanting. 

His letters home were brief and did not mention his spending way, his few letters to Dan even shorter, for Nat had no words to put onto paper in ink that which he felt about Dan. His longing transformed into long mournful serenades with his beloved violin, as he gazed over the roofs of Leipzig, the sweetness of dreams bitter when his heart and bed were bereft of his beloved. All too soon did Nat's spenddrift ways catch up with him and he had to give up his money eating pursuits and go back to his old quarters and a simpler life. Christmas loomed before him, empty and bereft of the joys of years past, Nat's best memories of Christmases shared with Dan. It seemed that they had been interwoven more deep than what Nat had ever realized. In weak moments the young man wished that Dan had never kissed him to begin with, that nothing, even when Nat did not regret what had come to pass between then, had ever happened, that their lone night together had been but a pipe dream. 

But, fate intervened and prevented Nat from having the lonely Christmas far away from the man he loved that his heart was set on as him having. For come Christmas Day, Nat's darling old Frau Tetzel knocked on the door of Nat's room to announce to him that he had a visitor, a young Amerikaner. In her wake came Dan and Nat hoped his face did not betray him to the good old lady. But she just looked on, not noticing anything other than two young men, friends of old, shaking hands and smiling happily, and quickly left them to talk amongst themselves. 

It became the happiest Christmas Nat had ever had.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfic that I've written for any of the Alcott books and I think that my prose does not give Ms. Alcott's writing justice. I still tried, even when my prose might fall a little short. 
> 
> As for the subject matter and plot, I always found Dan's eventual fate a little unjust, I like him better than Nat, even when I ended up writing mostly from Nat's point of view. Who knows, maybe I will write more in the future, as I think that fiction set in the latter half of the 1800's is intriguing, most of all due to the medicalization of homosexuality, it's a subject I'd like to explore with these two a little bit more. As for Dan, when I was rer-eading' Jo's Boys' I was again struck with the injustive of Dan having to be the one of Jo's "son's" who ends up badly and dying all alone in the wilds. So I gave him Nat and happiness.
> 
> I do hope you'll like it.


End file.
